Thursday, September 30, 2010

Lehi [Utah] police Lt. Darren Paul has said the probe was triggered by the reality television show "Sister Wives," which features 41-year-old advertising salesman Kody Brown and his four wives, 13 children and three stepchildren.

The Browns have said they hoped that the reality show's peek into their lives would help broaden the public's understanding of plural families.

Utah last prosecuted a polygamist for bigamy in 2001. Tom Green, who was married to five women and drew the attention of Utah authorities after promoting his lifestyle on national TV talks shows, was convicted on bigamy, criminal nonsupport and child rape charges. He spent six years in prison and was released in 2007.

The Utah attorney general's office has investigated the state's secretive polygamous communities, but focused its efforts on cases involving allegations of abuse, sexual assault and fraud, not bigamy.

"It has been our office's position not to pursue cases of bigamy between consenting adults," the attorney general's spokesman, Scott Troxel, said Tuesday. "We want to use our resources wisely."

Oregon lawmakers carefully crafted two laws to prevent pedophiles from using sexually explicit materials to lure and "groom" their child victims.

But a panel of three appeals court judges struck down the laws as "overbroad" [in Powell's Books v. Kroger].

The two laws levied fines and imprisonment for people "who intentionally furnish a narrowly defined set of sexually explicit materials to children who are 12 years old or younger," Oregon Attorney General John R. Kroger and his fellow law enforcement officials argued.

Tony Green, a spokesman for Mr. Kroger, said the two laws were passed overwhelmingly in the Oregon legislature and had strong support from law enforcement. However, the state had not decided whether to appeal the decision, he said Thursday.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Last month, a Modesto science teacher announced at a back-to-school night that he would teach the theory of intelligent design alongside evolution. Modesto City Schools district officials say that will not happen.

. . . Roosevelt Junior High teacher Mark Ferrante, [is] the instructor who last month told parents of his intention at back-to-school night. Ferrante did not answer e-mails seeking comment.

"He will not be teaching intelligent design. He has been instructed to teach the state standards and intelligent design is not in the state standards," Modesto City Schools spokeswoman Emily Lawrence said last week.

The administration hews to the official policy, set by the board a decade ago, of not teaching intelligent design. Today, as then, the Modesto City Schools board is divided on the issue.

"The current curriculum states that the evolution of man, Darwinism, must be taught as a theory. I feel we do our students a disservice by not helping them become critical thinkers when we forbid the teaching of competing scientific theories, such as intelligent design," trustee Nancy Cline said in an e-mail.

A new study with a very limited sample of women having abortions, just 69, has received considerable attention for supposedly disproving the plethora of peer-reviewed studies confirming women who have abortions face both depression and other mental health problems.

Both sides of the abortion debate have seized on recent research into the emotional effects of abortion. In the new study, researchers from Oregon State University and the University of California, San Francisco examined statistics from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Specifically, the researchers looked at responses from 269 adolescent girls who were in grades 7 to 12 from 1994-1995.

The researchers compared 69 pregnant teens who had an abortion to 220 pregnant teens who didn't have the procedure. For the study, the investigators used standard measures of depression and self-esteem, and looked at the participants' mental health before and during pregnancy, as well as one year and five years later.

The findings were released online in advance of publication in the December print issue of the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, published by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group that monitors state abortion policies.

This [new study] contradicts studies, some from pro-life organizations, that suggest that women do tend to have worse mental health after abortions. The Oregon folks suggest that this is because women who have a number of unintended pregnancies have worse mental health to begin with.

Using the data from the new study, the Guttmacher Institute, which is pro-choice, suggests that state laws requiring counseling about possible mental health repercussions after abortion might "jeopardize women's health by adding unnecessary anxiety and undermining women's right to informed consent."

The American Psychological Association argued . . . that there was no correlation between terminating a pregnancy early in the first trimester and mental illness in adults, but then did note that in studies conducted in Australia, New Zealand and Finland, some correlation had been found.

Other recent studies from the last two years provide nearly irrefutable evidence that abortion affects women in a myriad of ways -- making it so they face everything from depression and relationship problems to PTSD and elevated risks for abusing drugs or alcohol.

An August study published in the Journal of Pregnancy and involving 374 women who had abortions -- more than five times the number of women who appeared in the new study -- found women having high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms for women having both early and late abortions.

Approximately 52 percent of the early abortion group and 67 percent of the late term abortion group met the American Psychological Association's criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms (PTSD).

A May 2010 study put out by researchers at the University of Manitoba in Canada found women who have had abortions are about four times more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol as those who carried their pregnancy to term. The authors confirmed a link between abortion and the substance abuse issues.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) [a poster-child for why the Tea Party exists] said the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortion except in certain cases, should be repealed, and also said “there’s no evidence” that increasing access to abortion services encourages people to get abortions.

This "dinosaur liberal" hasn't caught up with the rest of America (including the scientifically educated), who recognize abortion as the killing of an innocent human being -- read: Restrict Abortion, Say 61% of Americans

At an event on Capitol Hill sponsored by the Center for Reproductive Rights to call for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, CNSNews.com asked Rep. Schakowsky, “So, increasing access to abortion, you think, does not encourage some people to get abortions?”

Rep. Schakowsky said, “No, there’s no evidence of that around the world, where access to abortion is more available but somehow women are more inclined to get one.”

Terry Sallas Merritt, vice president of Whole Woman's Health, said during the event on Capitol Hill that abortion is 10 times safer than childbirth.

CNSNews.com asked Rep. Schakowsky if she agreed with Merritt.

. . . the congresswoman said[,] “There are many more things that can go wrong [in childbirth] than a first-trimester abortion . . .”

A new survey of Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics . . . many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths.

The survey released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life aimed to test a broad range of religious knowledge, including understanding of the Bible, core teachings of different faiths and major figures in religious history. The U.S. is one of the most religious countries in the developed world, especially compared to largely secular Western Europe, but faith leaders and educators have long lamented that Americans still know relatively little about religion.

The study also found that many Americans don't understand constitutional restrictions on religion in public schools. While a majority know that public school teachers cannot lead classes in prayer, less than a quarter know that the U.S. Supreme Court has clearly stated that teachers can read from the Bible as an example of literature.

"Many Americans think the constitutional restrictions on religion in public schools are tighter than they really are," Pew researchers wrote.

A majority of Protestants, for instance, couldn't identify Martin Luther as the driving force behind the Protestant Reformation, according to the survey, released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Four in 10 Catholics misunderstood the meaning of their church's central ritual, incorrectly saying that the bread and wine used in Holy Communion are intended to merely symbolize the body and blood of Christ, not actually become them.

Atheists and agnostics — those who believe there is no God or who aren't sure — were more likely to answer the survey's questions correctly. Jews and Mormons ranked just below them in the survey's measurement of religious knowledge — so close as to be statistically tied.

The groups at the top of the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey were followed, in order, by white evangelical Protestants, white Catholics, white mainline Protestants, people who were unaffiliated with any faith (but not atheist or agnostic), black Protestants and Latino Catholics.

Monday, September 27, 2010

So-called evangelical pastors have no interest in witnessing the Gospel to Muslims, but rather are eager to maintain relations, such as regular meals with imams affiliated with the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"When Christians sit down with Muslims to have an interfaith dialogue, typically what happens is that Christians stand up and say wonderful things about Islam. Then Muslims stand up and say wonderful things about Islam so there's really no interfaith dialogue taking place."

Michael Ly, a young, self-described Chinese Cambodian American evangelical Christian . . . is a pastor at Soma — Renton, a nondenominational church formerly called Harambee Church. An accountant by day, his aim to build better understanding between evangelical Christians and Muslims is purely a grass-roots effort.

And it's an effort he thinks is growing nationwide, especially among those his age and younger.

Ly's next big project is to work with the director of the local Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) to organize a dinner this fall, inviting 20 imams and other Muslim leaders, and 20 pastors and other Christian leaders mainly from conservative evangelical churches.

There's the theological barrier: Many evangelicals view Muslims as people who have rejected the teachings and messages of Jesus. Some also believe Muhammad was a false prophet and that Islam is therefore based on a false premise. Or they feel Islam is antagonistic toward Christianity.

. . . Lead Pastor John Prince of Soma — Renton . . . says [proselytizing is] not his goal. And Ly believes it's up to God whether people change their faith.

"There is a two-pronged outrage. The first outrage is that we have an evangelical pastor once again giving aid, promotion and legitimacy to a group [CAIR] that has been called unindicted co-conspirators," Schlueter stated.

"The second outrage is that the pastor of this church apparently believes that conducting potlucks and hosting tours of mosques for Christians and churches for Muslims is going to somehow fulfill Christ's command to preach repentance and remission of sins," Schlueter added.

"All the good intentions and all the group hugs in Seattle are not going to accomplish the commission that Christ gave us to preach the Gospel to every nation," Schlueter stated.

Ly said that Washington State CAIR chapter president Arsalan Bukhari introduced him to the Muslim Association of the Puget Sound Redmond leader and "helped us get the Qurans we used."

"When you are promoting CAIR, that has a proven track record of defending evil, you are serving as a tool of the enemies of Christ, the enemies of Israel and the enemies of freedom," Schlueter asserted.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

America's libraries appear to be in a battle with those pesky Christians, such as mysterious believers placing tracts in the stacks in Brunswick, Maine, and a persistent kid in Columbus, Georgia who initiates conversations about faith.

The shelves of Hawthorne-Longfellow Library (H-L Library) became the targets of pointed religious propaganda when Christian tracts were discovered inside several books concerning Islamic and Jewish Studies.

"I spent an hour taking out about 40 pamphlets until my shift was over and if I had kept going, I know I would have found more" said [student librarian Tommy] Cabrera. "What really bothered me was the way it was set up. They were hidden in random pages and definitely targeted toward the person who was going to read that book. It was a personal sort of attack."

"The library resources we provide are the bedrock of the intellectual freedom this campus enjoys," said [Librarian Sherrie] Bergman. "Central to that is that this information is presented without bias."

"We have found these tracts in books on abortion and on gay and lesbian rights and some of those were particularly hurtful and offensive because the tracts specifically targeted those groups," said Bergman. "We have had many people come to the front desk very upset by these tracts and we spend a lot of time and money on collecting and disposing of them."

"The library should challenge censorship and we certainly view these [tracts] as being a type of interference," she said.

Today, over 100 pastors are preaching in defiance of the IRS restriction of their freedom to “participate in, or intervene in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.” The IRS threatens churches with the loss of tax-exempt status for such actions.

While other church and nonprofit leaders cringe at the deliberate mix of the secular and the religious, participants in the annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday protest hope this act of deliberate lawbreaking will lead to a change in the law.

Participants in the [Alliance Defense Fund] pulpit protest send audio or videotape of their sermons to the IRS, but so far the agency has ignored them. The agency declined to comment on the issue, other than to share a copy of its regulations for tax-exempt religious organizations.

For the past 60 years, the IRS code has drawn a line. Places of worship can hold forums on political issues, or distribute voter guides or mobilize voter registration drives. But they cannot endorse candidates or engage in partisan political activities.

Only one church has ever been penalized for running afoul of the law — a New York congregation that took out a full-page ad in 1992 to rail against then-candidate Bill Clinton. It lost its tax-exempt status for a year.

Participants of the third annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday, organized by the Christian legal group Alliance Defense Fund, will use the Bible’s teachings to preach on the positions of electoral candidates or current government officials in defiance of an IRS rule proposed by then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson and passed by Congress in 1954.

“Pastors and churches shouldn’t live in fear of being punished or penalized by the government – in this case, the IRS,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. “ADF is not trying to get politics into the pulpit; we want to get government out of the pulpit.”

The IRS rule, ADF contends, has in effect “muzzled” pastors from speaking freely in the pulpit. It has also given groups such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State a “political tool” to advance its agenda to silence the Church in the public square.

“Decisions about what is preached from the pulpit of a church should not belong to the government but to the individual pastor and church itself,” wrote Chuck Colson, founder of the prison ministry Prison Fellowship and a former aide to President Richard Nixon, in a column this week.

Since it's introduction in 2002, the patch has been prescribed 40 million times.

. . . But the patch is associated with higher risks of pulmonary embolism — a type of blood clot — as well as stroke and heart attack. These are all rare side effects of any birth control medication that contains synthetic forms of estrogen. The problem is, the patch pumps 60% more estrogen into your bloodstream than the Pill does. While the oral Pill is quickly digested and broken down in the body, the patch provides a constant stream of estrogen for three weeks of each month.

An NBC report, broadcast during Thursday's broadcast of the Today show, said that according to leaked patient reports from J&J, the company knew that users of the patch were 12 times more likely to suffer stroke and 18 times more likely to have blood clots than Pill takers.

An Oak Brook Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate got a boost Thursday from an unlikely source - Democrat Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias, who gave props to Mike Labno while predicting his Republican opponent will fall victim to tea party wrath.

Following the loss of a moderate candidate to a tea party activist in Delaware's GOP Senate primary Tuesday, Giannoulias issued a news release calling Republican opponent Mark Kirk the "conservative wave's ... next victim in November, with Mike Labno as the only pro-life, pro-gun candidate running for Senate in Illinois."

The effort is a strategy by Giannoulias' campaign to siphon Republican votes away from Kirk in the extremely close race for President Barack Obama's old seat.

As a five-term 10th District congressman, Kirk has supported stem cell research, several gun control laws and abortion rights, though he opposes federal funding of abortion.

A Constitution Party candidate is going to court to try to regain a spot on the Illinois Senate ballot - an effort that, if successful, could spell trouble for GOP nominee Mark Kirk.

Election officials removed Randy Stufflebeam from the ballot last week, but his attorney filed a suit Wednesday aiming to get his name back on.

Furthermore, after a lackluster performance in the GOP primary downstate, Kirk needs to do well there with Republicans to boost his bid. Not only is Stufflebeam from that region, but he's also more conservative than Kirk on several issues: He is anti-abortion, while Kirk favors abortion rights, and Stufflebeam is against the cap-and-trade legislation that the congressman voted for in 2009.

Doug Ibendahl, an attorney for Stufflebeam, filed a petition for judicial review with the Cook County Circuit Court Wednesday and has requested an expedited hearing. Ibendahl said he was not going to predict a victory, but figured Stufflebeam had a "decent chance" of being reinstated on the ballot.

[Ibendahl] blamed the state Republican Party and Kirk.

"We got the kitchen sink thrown at us because they're so desperate, because there are a lot of conservatives who can't stomach Mark Kirk," said Ibendahl.

Five thousand conservative true believers cheered Fox News host Glenn Beck and other right-leaning firebrands at Right Nation 2010 in Hoffman Estates on Saturday night in a call-to-arms 45 days before Election Day.

The order by U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton in Tacoma applied only to Witt’s challenge of her 2006 discharge, but the judge noted in his ruling that decisions about whether homosexuality in the armed forces impeded legitimate military objectives had to be decided on a case-by-case basis, not a blanket policy.

Leighton cited Witt’s exemplary career and performance evaluations as evidence that the Air Force was unharmed by her sexual orientation and also noted reports from her former colleagues that it was her dismissal that proved disruptive of unit cohesion and morale.

Leighton observed at the conclusion of trial on Witt’s lawsuit seeking reinstatement that he was bound by a 2008 ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that said gays couldn’t be fired from the military unless their discharge was necessary to further military objectives.

. . . U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Leighton on Friday made the following comments from the bench:

1) I hope you will request reinstatement with the Air Force Reserves and the 446th [her unit]. You will provide the best evidence that open service of gays and lesbians will have no adverse effect on cohesion, morale or readiness in this or perhaps any Air Force or military unit.

2) You have been and continue to be a central figure in a long-term, highly charged civil-rights movement. That role places extraordinary stresses on you, I know. Today, you have won a victory in that struggle, the depth and duration of which will be determined by other judicial officers and, hopefully soon, the political branches of government. . . .

In 2007, MSM were 44 to 86 times as likely to be diagnosed with HIV compared with other men, and 40 to 77 times as likely as women.

From 2005–2008, estimated diagnoses of HIV infection increased approximately 17% among MSM. This increase was likely due to a combination of factors: increases in new infections, increased testing, and diagnosis earlier in the course of infection; it may also have been due to uncertainty in statistical models.

In 2008, an estimated 17,940 MSM were diagnosed with AIDS in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the US dependent areas—an increase of 6% since 2005.

By the end of 2007, an estimated 282,542 MSM with an AIDS diagnosis had died in the United States and 5 dependent areas.

Six men [have been arrested, and] could face charges of inciting racial hatred after a video of them burning copies of the Koran on the anniversary of 9/ 11 was posted on YouTube. . . . charges carrying a maximum sentence of seven years in jail.

The video shows the men – wearing tea towels around their heads – setting the Muslim holy book ablaze after dousing it with fuel behind a pub in Gateshead, Tyneside.

At one point, a laughing man kicks what appears to be a Koran while his friends shout: ‘This is for the boys in Afghanistan. September 11, international burn a Koran day, for all the people of 9/11.

[Officials are considering] whether to bring charges under the 1986 Public Order Act – charges carrying a maximum sentence of seven years in jail.

The men said they should not have been arrested because ‘ Muslims are allowed to burn British flags’. One man, a 37-year- old unemployed father, said: ‘It wasn’t so much planned as more we were driven to do it.

‘Now there seems to be one law for them and one law for us. They can burn a Union Flag and the Stars and Stripes, but we get arrested for burning a few sheets of paper.’

In California, Nevada, Delaware and New Hampshire, the GOP nominees for seats in the U.S. Senate are women who favor outlawing most abortions. All have been endorsed by Sarah Palin, who calls herself a "pro-life feminist."

A win by any one of them would fill a void. All 17 women now in the Senate, including four Republicans, support relatively broad abortion rights.

The four Republican women now in the Senate -- Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska -- vary in their stances on restricting abortion, but all support the basic rights established by Roe v. Wade, as do the Senate's 13 Democratic women.

Abortion rights groups plan to step up their work in California, hoping that publicizing Fiorina's opposition to Roe v. Wade will provide a boost to Boxer. Planned Parenthood affiliates have proposed spending $1 million on the race, while EMILY's List, which backs female candidates supporting abortion rights, is reaching out to women with mailings, phone calls and ads to highlight contrasts between the candidates.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

A 30-year-old Florida law that prohibits adoption by gay men and lesbians is unconstitutional, a state appeals court ruled on Wednesday, and the state's governor said the law would not be enforced pending a decision on whether to appeal the decision.

The decision by Florida's Third District Court of Appeal said that Florida's adoption law, which bans adoption by gays while allowing them to be foster parents, had "no rational basis" and thus violated the equal protection clause in the state Constitution. Judge Gerald B. Cope Jr. wrote the opinion, which affirmed a 2008 decision from a lower court.

According to the Associated Press (AP), the judge found "no rational basis" for the ban when she approved the adoption of two young brothers by a man named Martin Gill and his same-sex partner.

However, pro-family group Liberty Council reacted to the news on Wednesday and issued a statement saying that under “Florida law, adoption is a privilege and not a right and, as such, the state may make classifications in the adoption arena that may be constitutionally suspect in other areas. The decision to adopt a child is not a private decision but a public act.”

Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University School of Law said that “Common sense and human history underscore the fact that children need a mother and a father.”

“The Florida law seeks to ensure that children are placed in homes that have the potential of a mother and a father,” Staver underscored. “Homosexual adoption precludes children from having parents of both genders. Gender does matter to the well-being of children. Moms and dads are not optional non-essentials in the lives of children.”

E-mail cannot be used "for the creation or distribution of any disruptive or offensive messages, including offensive comments about race, gender, hair color, disabilities, age, sexual orientation, pornography, religious beliefs and practice, political beliefs, or national origin."

In July, the university notified students and faculty members of the ban.

"Individuals who receive political campaign solicitations via university email are advised to delete these emails upon receipt," the school's office of media relations wrote in an e-mail obtained by FIRE [Foundation for Individual Rights in Education].

Grambling State is not the first university to ban political activity. During the 2008 election cycle, the University of Oklahoma banned "the forwarding of political humor and commentary" via e-mail and the University of Illinois prohibited political buttons, T-shirts, bumper stickers and campaign literature. Both backed down under pressure from FIRE.

In the letter to GSU President Frank Pogue, FIRE argued that a public university cannot prohibit political speech by students and faculty members.

"GSU's inexact prohibition of student and faculty speech goes significantly beyond what is required by state law," the letter reads. "In so doing, GSI unconstitutionally violates the right to free speech in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, a right which GSU, a public university, is required to uphold."

The school today told WND that legal advisers were working on a statement, but it was not ready.

FIRE officials said they explained the Louisiana Constitution, which provides that even a member of the most restricted class of state employees may "exercise his right as a citizen to express his opinion privately."

The organization argued that "there is little chance that a reasonable person would assume that the sender is speaking on behalf of the university."

"The only thing worse than GSU's blanket ban on political e-mails is the school's erroneous claim that it is required to do so under state law," said Will Creeley, FIRE's director of legal and public advocacy.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Having failed to diminish attraction to the Tea Party movement with racist slander, the mainstream media is now using pejorative Christian characteristics to paint it as 'fundamentalist' and aiming to 'legislate morality.'

Tea Party kingmaker [Senator] Jim DeMint declared [Friday], “You cannot be a true fiscal conservative if you don’t have a culture based on values.”

Of course, the Tea Parties share a lot of common ground with the Christian Right, both politically and religiously. This summer, a Gallup poll found that 8 out of ten self-identified Tea Partiers were also Republican and that there was “significant overlap” between the two groups. Earlier this year, a New York Times/CBS poll found that only 16 percent of Tea Partiers thought gay couples should be allowed to marry, compared to 39 percent of overall respondents. More than half of Tea Partiers (53 percent) disapproved of Roe v. Wade, compared to 34 percent of all respondents. (For more on this, see our own Ed Kilgore on abortion and the Tea Party.) And, of course, the movement’s biggest figureheads — Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin — have a decidedly religious and Republican bent.

At the annual Values Voter Summit last weekend, Billie Tucker, co-founder of the Jacksonville, Florida–based First Coast Tea Party . . . [said,] "I'm putting God back into the United States of America!"

Although many tea party groups focus on "fiscal" issues over "social" ones like abortion and LGBT rights, the Tea Party movement shares activists, organizers and ideology with the religious right. Many of the attendees at the Values Voter Summit, as well as at the conference of fallen GOP golden boy Ralph Reed's new Faith and Freedom Coalition the previous weekend, are involved in local tea parties.

But the issue isn't just whether or not tea party groups mobilize around particular religious-right issues like abortion or gay marriage. The intersection goes a lot deeper—to the very basis of the Tea Party's claim that government is trampling individual freedoms. Many tea partiers, like religious right activists, find the roots of their thinking on government in the Bible.

. . . the uprising energy of the Tea Party movement is beginning to coalesce with the organizing savvy of the religious right—and putting the force of religious zeal behind the Tea Party's anti-government fanaticism.

Ignoring abortion as an issue is an inveterate habit of the chattering classes, particularly on the progressive side of the aisle. Few people, other than celebrating right-to-lifers, have noted how much the already slim ranks of pro-choice Republicans were thinned this primary season.

This is a persistent blind spot in political commentary.

We have been told repeatedly that the Tea Party movement is all about economics and fiscal issues . . .

Perhaps because the national media tend to be secular, we are persistently underestimating the role that abortion plays in right-wing politics. Yet it is key to understanding some of the zealous opposition that caused GOP primary voters to overthrow [Delaware's] Mike Castle.

For all the endless and interminable talk about "constitutionalism" on the right, it's rarely acknowledged that lurking in the background is wrath about Roe v. Wade.

More generally, the anger associated with the entire Tea Party movement is, I suspect, traceable among many activists to endless frustration of its desire to end the "genocide" of legalized abortion, to which the GOP "establishment" has given little more than lip service.

From the Christian conservative point of view: "We are the Tea Party" by John Mark Reynolds, Professor of philosophy for Biola, posted at The Washington Post 9/21/10

The Tea Party crowd will be religious and have traditional values, because most Americans are religious and have traditional values. Small government and strong private morality have always gone together in America.

The Tea Partiers have taken a political Hippocratic Oath: asking government to do no harm to their private lives.

The stale category "religious right" must be retired. America is overwhelmingly religious and most of us don't fit neat ideological categories: especially ones designed for the last political generation.

Americans want to be good, but see an educational system that assaults their values, a graft ridden government, and a toxic popular culture. We know that we are responsible in great part for these problems. We have tolerated cads, crooks or weathercocks if they were cads, crooks or weathercocks in our party.

. . . Our best schools may produce brilliant workers who make nifty products, but they are failing to produce men and women of character.

The Tea Partiers should and will go on ignoring the advice of the nobility that has served us so badly.

The proposal introduced by Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., the first openly gay woman elected to Congress, cleared a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on a party-line vote Thursday. Republican attempts to block or restrict the measure failed.

Though critics say the move represents an invasion of privacy, the legislation was cast as a way to help federal officials gather data so they can track "health disparities" based on those sexual identity factors.

"If you're a young person, you may not even know what the questions refer to," said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, among the 10 Republicans who voted against the bill. "And for the life of me I cannot see ... why this is something that the federal government should get itself involved with."

According to Baldwin, the current “lack of cultural competency” among federal officials means that “we are left with gaping holes in our knowledge on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) policy” resulting in “significant health disparities.”

. . . Children who seek help at government-funded school health clinics would be asked whether or not they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or if they know their gender identity.

Senate Democrats are angling to end the military's decades-old ban on allowing abortions in overseas military hospitals, thus thrusting the culture wars back onto the front burner after months of being drowned out by the nation's economic woes.

Mr. Burris' plan would require women to pay for abortions upfront and without government funds, but would allow [taxpayer-paid] doctors at [taxpayer-funded] military hospitals to perform the procedures if those conditions are met. It would overturn a policy established by congressional Republicans in the mid-1990s that restricted abortions at military hospitals only to cases of rape, incest or when the woman's life is in danger.

Democrats argue that women would still be using their own private funds for the procedure, not taxpayer money. But Republicans contend that the doctors and the facilities where the procedure would be performed are federally funded.

[These amendments have] been widely opposed by social conservatives and only further complicates the debate over the defense spending package. Senate Democrats already have drawn the ire of Republicans by trying to add to the bill measures to repeal the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy banning gays from serving openly in the military and provide young illegal immigrants who attend college or join the military a pathway to citizenship.

. . . Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has indicated that even if the Senate clears that hurdle, which requires 60 votes, the defense bill likely will not come up for a final vote until after the November election.

[Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), the pro-life/pro-family face of the Tea Party in the Senate] told CNN’s “State of the Union” that if the GOP takes control in November and doesn’t live up to the conservative principles it has espoused, then “the Republican Party’s dead.”

“Men and women, we must demand, here and now, that the leaders of the Republican Party stand for life, traditional marriage and religious liberty without apology,” [said Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN)].

According to key anti-abortion lawmaker Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.), GOP leadership gave their reassurances that lighting-rod issues related to abortion would be addressed in the final, yet-to-be-seen “governing agenda.”

Former National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman (NRCC) Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), who has been deeply involved in the planning of the new “governing agenda,” told The Hill that leaders were still “wrestling” out the matter of social issues.

"[Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).] and [project Vice-Chairman] Peter Roskam (Ill.) have done a brilliant job of this, they’ve done really well and there was a lot of discussion about this [among deputy whips on Thursday] but the reality is I think people, broadly, are very satisfied. I think they are down to the final tweaking,” Cole said in an interview with The Hill.

For the most part, job creation, spending restraint and national security topped the list of relatively non-controversial action items that Republicans would have included in their wishlist of to-do items should they regain control of Congress in the fall.

But DeMint, who joined fellow social conservatives at the Values Voter Summit last week, is unapologetic.

“Some of my establishment friends are not really happy with me,” he told a cheering audience at the [Values Voter Summit] conference. "Folks, instead of diminishing our party, there's been one upset after another all over the country. ... This is no longer voting for the 'least worst' on the ballot.”

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Texas public schoolchildren risk getting tainted with a pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias in their textbooks, according to a resolution the State Board of Education will consider next week that is likely to further inflame emotions already running high across the country.

The State Board of Education plans to vote next week on a resolution calling on textbook publishers to limit what they print about Islam in world history books.

"Diverse reviewers have repeatedly documented gross pro-Islamic, anti-Christian distortions in social studies texts," reads a preliminary draft of the resolution, which would not be binding on future boards that will choose the state's next generation of social studies texts.

The resolution concludes by warning publishers the "State Board of Education will look to reject future prejudicial social studies submissions that continue to offend Texas law with respect to treatment of the world's major religious groups by significant inequalities of coverage space-wise and by demonizing or lionizing one or more of them over others."

Lawrence Allen Jr., D-Houston, the board's only Muslim member, warned Wednesday that board approval of the resolution will bring more unwelcome national attention to Texas.

The resolution contends that current textbooks glorify Islam with "superlatives" while downsizing Christianity with "pejoratives."

Support for the resolution appears to be coming mainly from the board's seven social conservative members and reflects the same sort of tension evident when they developed new science curriculum standards last year and social studies curriculum standards earlier this year.

. . . Rick Scarborough, president of Vision America . . . a former Southern Baptist minister, told the audience his story of recognizing the need for pastors to snap out of political complacency and get involved in the cultural war for the soul of the nation.

He had attended a sexual education presentation at his daughter's high school in the 1990s, only to discover a message of sexual license and perversity that shocked him. When he brought a transcript of the presentation to his church, the building was filled with people equally stunned.

Shortly thereafter, Scarborough explained at [the conference] "Taking America Back," he began to free his congregation from excessive church responsibilities to take up civic duties. Members of his church were elected to the school board and city council and began to reassert Christian values in the public arena.

"We just got the people in the churches to stand up and do what they ought to be doing," Scarborough said.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

The informed liberals "get it," as demonstrated in the article below written and published by the political left (Huffington Post). Why does the Republican establishment pretend that the Tea Party movement is void of Christians who advocate social issues and pray to God to "heal our land?"

Why are we just getting the bulletin about "social conservatives" in the Tea Party movement?

. . . The successful Tea Party candidates reveal how vital social conservatism is to Tea Party voters. Would-be GOP Senators Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell are bona fide Christian zealots. . . . Colorado's Ken 'Vote-for-me-because-I-don't-wear-high-heels' Buck favors a state Personhood amendment, an anti-abortion measure which would effectively outlaw many common forms of birth control.

And then there are Sarah Palin's 'mama grizzlies' -- Carly Fiorina (CA), Nikki Haley (SC), Kelly Ayotte (NH), Christine O'Donnell (DE), and Angle (NV). What they have in common is not a ginned up conservative feminism, nor anti-government populism, but rather a common mission to legislate traditional Christian values. Each one plans to make abortion illegal and man the barricades against gay marriage. O'Donnell, Angle, and Palin have been vocal about how their conservative Christian faith shapes their political beliefs. Haley, faced with a difficult primary race, soft-pedaled her Sikh upbringing and testified to "living in Christ every day."

. . . A Quinnipiac poll suggests that the Christian rightwingers will prevail: Born-again evangelicals are the most dissatisfied group in the nation, and the group most likely to say they would vote for a Tea Party candidate. The GOP knows well that Christian conservatives are their most reliable constituency, and won't cross evangelicals simply to hold onto the handful of votes wielded by libertarians.

Pence [spoke] on one of the most vexing issues facing House Republicans: the inclusion of social issues in a governing agenda meant to propel the party into power. Some Republican leaders say their 2010 agenda should avoid culture war issues because they would distract from promoting job-creating measures. Pence fired back, saying Republicans can “can create jobs while protecting innocent human life.”

If Republicans hold the “banner” of God and freedom high, “I believe with all my heart the good and great people in this land will rally to our cause; we will win this Congress back in 2010; and we will win this country back in 2012,” Pence said.

“Those who would have us ignore the battle being fought over life, marriage and religious liberty have forgotten the lessons of history," Pence said. "As in the days of a house divided, America’s darkest moments have come when economic arguments trumped moral principles.”

Even atheists believe in God sometimes. It's no wonder why Sarah Palin stirs hatred among those who hate God, but why do so many liberals hate her? What they hate most is that the more they hate her, the more able she becomes.

Sarah Palin has often suggested that she believes her rise to power is divinely ordained. She is, moreover, the only contemporary American politician whose admirers openly describe her as a modern-day version of a biblical character.

On the main pro-Palin blog, Conservatives4Palin, many postings contemplate Palin’s resemblance to Queen Esther, the eponymous hero of a short book in the Hebrew Bible. And Palin herself encourages the analogy. This past April, for instance, she told a Christian group in Louisville, Kentucky, that she often reads the book of Esther to her daughter Piper at bedtime.

When the doughnuts were handed out, a scripture verse was included. One student was immediately sent home and two others were forced to spend a Saturday morning sitting alone in the classroom for four hours as a punishment.

In the past, the same student group had handed out sandwiches, hot chocolate, and candy canes to the student body and faculty. They helped staff with the trash and fellow students with their lunch trays. They also distributed rocks with affirming words like "U are wonderful' painted on one side and "Psalm 139" on the other.

This school is already named in a pending lawsuit filed by Liberty Counsel on behalf of families and students who were bullied, and one suspended, for exercising their freedom of religion by distributing abstinence wristbands and plastic models of babies at 12 weeks gestation to bring attention to the life of the unborn.

Wellesley’s superintendent of schools apologized today after Wellesley Middle School students were allowed to pray at an Islamic mosque during a May field trip.

"It was not the intent for students to be able to participate in any of the religious practices,” Superintendent Bella Wong wrote in a letter being sent to parents later today. “I extend my sincere apologies for the error that occurred and regret the offense it may have caused.”

Wong said the field trip to the Roxbury-based Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center — which faced opposition during its construction — was part of a social studies course called “Enduring Beliefs and the World Today,” that includes introductions to a number of religions. During the course students visit a mosque, synagogue, attend a gospel performance, and meet with Hindus.

The trip gained wider attention after the Boston-based group Americans for Peace and Tolerance released a video on Sept. 16 showing five middle school students praying during the trip. A parent who chaperoned the field trip allegedly shot the footage of the trip included in the video.

Parents were told [in advance] their children would be learning about the architecture of a mosque and they would be allowed to observe a prayer service. But the students wound up being given a lecture on the Prophet Muhammad, and some boys participated in a midday prayer service.

The field trip was videotaped by a parent whose child was on the trip. At one point, the video shows a spokeswoman for the mosque telling students, “You have to believe in Allah, and Allah is the one God, the only one worthy of worship, all forgiving, all merciful."

The sixth graders were also reportedly told that jihad is a personal spiritual struggle that has nothing to do with holy war, and girls on the field trip were told that Islam is pro-women.

“Islam was actually very advanced in terms of recognizing women’s rights,” an unidentified mosque spokeswoman says in the video. “At the time of the Prophet Muhammad, women were allowed to express their opinions and vote. In this country, women didn’t gain that right until less than a hundred years ago.”

Dr. Rapin Osathanondh was sentenced in the 2007 death of 22-year-old Laura Hope Smith. He pleaded guilty in a Massachusetts court Monday, just as his trial was about to begin.

Smith was 13 weeks pregnant when she went to see Osathanondh for an abortion in his Cape Cod office. She was pronounced dead later that day.

Prosecutors charged Osathanondh with manslaughter, alleging that he failed to monitor her while she was under anesthesia, delayed calling 911 when her heart stopped, and later lied to try to cover up his actions.

Rapin Osathanondh, 67, will serve at least three months in jail as a result of a plea negotiated Monday between his attorneys and Cape and Islands First Assistant District Attorney Brian Glenny. Osathanondh will serve that time in the Dukes County Jail in Edgartown, according to the plea agreement. He was sentenced to a 2½-year jail term with six months to serve. However, the plea agreement allows him out on parole after serving three months.

Osathanondh also settled a civil suit, agreeing to pay the victim's parents, Tom and Eileen Smith of Sandwich, $2 million. "Nobody won. Laura got justice, but it's a tragedy all the way around," Eileen Smith said.

Tom Smith said that despite Osathanondh's affiliation with Harvard University he had "practiced Third World medicine" on patients like his daughter. Osathanondh was a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health at the time of Smith's abortion.